The English Revolution led by Oliver Cromwell beheaded the King and established the rule of Parliament for the first time. The Levellers of Gerrard Winstanley were the left wing of the Revolution and put forward Communist demands.

During the Industrial Revolution workers’ organisation was repressed with the utmost brutality. Despite this, the British workers organised themselves and eventually forced the Combination Laws to be repealed in 1824. New Combination Laws were brought in however in 1825.

The “First International” was headquartered in London, bring English Trades Council leaders and European revolutionaries together with the mass membership of trades unions and radical political movements. See particularly The Irish Question and the Fenians.

In the latter part of the 19th century, British socialists joined with comrades in Europe to build the parties of the working class which eventually led to the Labour Party and Communist Party of the twentieth century.

The ILP was a reformist Party founded by the leaders of “New Unionism” in 1893, capitulated to social chauvenism during WW1, but then took up a centrist position between the Labour Party and the Communist Party.